Sheep Hunting - Sheer Torture and Joy

** This is the public, filtered version for the blog **

August 10, one of the most exciting days of the year for me. It's the opening day of sheep hunting here in Alaska. It is a day that is dreamed about and planned well in advance.

For 2017, my annual sheep hunt would be a little different. This year, I planned to go hunting with my friend Shawn. He is a teacher in the Anchorage School District. As such, he MUST be at work on the morning of August 16 regardless of any reason to be absent, or risk being fired. This would make a typical 10-day sheep hunt impossible, however, knowing our restriction on time in the field, we would plan accordingly. 

We planned to hunt an area Shawn has hunted before. He saw a bunch of sheep his first time the area and our hopes were high to build on last year’s knowledge.  

Day 1 (T - 3 Days)

I had to wake up early and drive Tundra to the valley to check him in to a boarder. Danielle was in Iowa with Ashton visiting family and our typical dog friendly friends either recently moved or were busy. After that I hurried home for my last shower before the hunt and to eat breakfast. The plan was to take off shortly after Shawn got to my house, around 10. Shawn previously dropped off his ATV a couple days ahead of time, so the 4-wheelers were already loaded and ready to take off. 

A little after 10, Shawn pulled into the drive. We quickly loaded everything into my truck, and hit the road. The drive took significantly longer than expected due to road construction and the ATV straps that kept failing to falling off. We eventually made it to our hunting area and we hit the trail sometime in the afternoon/ evening.  We immediately saw 3 sheep in the distance and got excited to get to our destination. 

The ATV trail was nicer than I expected. It was fairly easy to ride and in good condition. On our way in, we didn't glass the mountains too hard since we had a good idea of our plan/ route. However, there were 4 rams low on a mountain that we stared at for a while knowing one was likely legal and a second real close. Unfortunately, these rams were easily accessible and viewable from the ATV trail, and being 3 days before the hunting season, it would have been a huge gamble to sit and watch the rams until the opening day. Because of this, we noted their location and continued our ride. As soon as we stopped the ATVs at the end of the trail, we were swarmed with white sox and mosquitos. If you are not familiar with white sox, they are small flies with a red body that bite. Their bites hurt, their bites itch and swell, they are immune to deet, and they love flying around your face (which means in your mouth when breathing heavy). Typically, I don't plan to battle bugs when on a sheep hunt, so this was a change. Our strategy to avoid the bugs would be to hike faster than they could fly to keep up. That strategy didn't work too well. 

We parked our ATVs and secured them with tarps, bungees, and locks. We then set off toward the mountains. We had to semi bush whack up and over a rather large hill at the beginning of the hike. There was an occasional path from animals walking in the area, but we were unable to find the horse trail rumored to exist.

We ended up only hiking 3 miles through the trees and brush. We decided to camp on a ledge overlooking a lake, and within glassing view of some mountain faces. From our camping area, we ended up spotting 4 different groups of sheep consisting of 8 lambs and ewes, 14 lambs and ewes, 3 rams, and 2 rams. Our sheep viewing total for the first day came to 34 sheep. 

Although we only hiked a short distance, we were already very sweaty and stinky. The 70+ degree weather didn't help that much (nor would it for the majority of the hunt). We hit the hay relatively early and decided that we would wake up around 6AM the next day. We weren't in much of a hurry to cover too much ground since it was still 3 days before the opener. We went to bed that night dreaming of the two groups of rams and planned to hike that direction the next day to get a closer look at them. This would be our Plan A for the hunt. Lucky for me, my need for white noise to sleep was fulfilled by the hum of hundreds of mosquitos trying to get in our tent all night!

Day 2 (T - 2 days)

We woke up to some beautiful and warm weather. A quick look through the binoculars around us and we found the same 5 rams we would head towards that day. We leisurely ate breakfast and tore down camp. From the time we woke up to the time we were hiking only took 30 minutes. 

On our way toward the 5 rams, a couple more rams appeared on a mountain face in that direction, making 7 potential rams to check out. Our path toward the rams took the rams out of sight as we dipped and maneuvered around low ground. The low area made us cross paths with a couple families of ptarmigan consisting of a mama bird and a handful of this year's babies (opening day for ptarmigan was also August 10). We eventually reached the creek drainage by the valley. By the time we got to the drainage, the only rams in sight were the group of two from the day prior. Both of these rams were easily sublegal. 

After determining the 2 rams were not legal, a quick glance up the drainage showed a band of 4 rams grazing on some high grass, now our Plan B rams. A glance in the other direction to a far mountain range on the steepest part showed 5 sheep together on a knob and 2 at the highest point of the mountain. Both locations indicated that these groups were likely rams. We decided to check out the rams toward the top of the drainage. 

These rams were difficult to get close to as they were in an area that could oversee a vast amount of space and didn't really allow a good approach. As a result, we kept our distance for a while, waiting for them to potentially come lower off the mountain and obstruct their view of the lower drainage. This meant lounging in the sun while we waited, and that is precisely what we did for most of the day. (It's a good thing I took a small packet of sunscreen on this hunt or I would have ended up more sun burnt than I got)

While we were waiting for the rams to drop lower, we noticed a pair of sheep really low on the mountain near the drainage water. It turns out these sheep were two ewes and apparently, they were rouge and didn't belong to a larger group of other ewes and lambs. We watched all 6 six of the sheep for approximately 6 hours while listening to whistle pigs (large rodent like animals similar to marmots) scream all around us. 

The rams finally decided to move lower, and they eventually became obstructed from view. We decided to creep closer for a better look. On the way, we realized that we were getting short on water. Unfortunately, water seemed hard to come by in this area as creek water randomly disappeared beneath the ground and reappeared at random times further downstream. We got lucky and found a side stream with a little output to fill up before we got too much further into the drainage without water. 

While we were filling up water, a huge group of 40 lambs and ewes appeared at the top of a ridge where we were planning to eventually cross and go into a different valley. This concerned us at first as we didn't want to spook them, which would in turn alert the rams. However, we soon realized they didn't care we were there and even with us in sight, they did not spook and run away. 

After getting closer and studying the 4 rams more, we decided that the biggest of all of them was still a marginal ram (maybe legal, maybe not). Marginal rams can get hunters in trouble by harvesting the ram, and then later finding out that they were not legal to kill. Marginal rams also eat up a significant amount of time from having to study every single angle and wait until they present the absolute perfect view for determining legality. Instead of flirting with a marginal ram, we decided to move on to Plan C and go up and over the pass that the 40 lambs and ewes crossed, so we could check out the other valley. On our way up, we continued to check out the marginal rams. We also noticed further up the drainage where it curves around, 11 additional lambs and ewes were feeding. 

When we finally made it to the top of the ridge pass, we looked behind us and could see a tent setup in the valley below. We were hoping they saw us hike up and over so they knew we were in that other valley, and hopefully they wouldn't follow.

The valley on the other side looked very nice. It was a gentle slope down to a couple active streams with plenty of grass all around it. We descended into the bowl below and decided to setup the tent next to one of the streams. Again, we weren't in too big of a hurry to push our hiking late due to the hunting season still being closed. The sound of the stream flowing next to the tent was the best natural lullaby. 

We hiked 8 miles that day, for a total of 11. We saw an additional 64 sheep for a total of 98 sheep overall. 

Day 3 (T - 1)

I woke up that morning and realized that inside my sleeping bag was a charging cable and sleeping bag liner that I left in the bag from a previous camping trip. Silly me, bringing extra, unneeded weight. As soon as I got out of the tent I could tell it was going to be another nice and soon to be hot day. The pass we crossed over the night before contained 4 ewes munching on some grass (I won't count them in the total since they were likely counted the night before).

We were anxious to make our way to the top of a small mountain in the middle of the new valley. This spot was a potentially great area to sit and watch for sheep movement. It was only a couple miles away from our camping spot, so it wouldn't take long to get there after we packed up camp. 

Once at the mountain, we immediately noticed a landing strip toward the base in the valley floor. We heard rumors that a guide potentially flies clients back in this valley, and this must be where he goes.

We were very quiet and sneaky once we got near the top of the mountain. This peak was also very good sheep terrain and we feared rams may be hanging out here as well. As we slowly wondered up and around the peak, we determined the coast was clear and shifted our focus to the valley. To our surprise, the valley was relatively barren. We were expecting this valley to be an oasis of hidden sheep, and when it wasn't, it was a little disappointing.  

We soon recognized a few white dots scattered among a mountain face. A small solo ram was sitting on a noll by himself, and a group of two rams were napping high on a rocky outcrop. We immediately noticed that one of the rams in the pair of sheep was easily legal... he was a monster. There was no doubt we wanted to pursue this ram, but we soon realized, these two rams were uncharacteristically very high on the mountain compared to the rest of the sheep we have seen so far. The terrain they were in was very dangerous and even if a we could get close enough to them for a shot, retrieving the ram would be either impossible, or very easy after it rolled down the entire mountain hitting every rocky point and 50 foot fall, resulting in a dead, tenderized ram with numerous broken bones, broken horns, and ruined meat/hide.  Neither of these outcomes is desirable and something that must be avoided while sheep hunting. 

We sat on the ridge for hours under the sun watching them, trying to figure out if they would demonstrate a pattern that could be repeatable the next day. Our tentative plan at that time was to just sit, watch, and be patient for the rams to come down lower and possibly get in shooting/ retrievable range. As we watched them, we scoured the mountain for possible approaches and best-case scenarios on places they could travel and fall if shot. To our surprise, they only moved higher and became more unobtainable as the day went on. We wondered if they had been spooked by someone or something because we know they couldn't see us. We were unable to see anything below them that would push them higher, plus, the solo ram was not spooked at all and was so low on the mountain face that it was within 100 yards of the creek bottom. 

The next day was the opener, and we decided that we would sit and watch these rams for the rest of the day, and hopefully they would come down lower at some point in the evening on into the next day. Knowing we were going to watch them the rest of the day, we slowly made our way down the backside of our lookout mountain and toward the valley bottom. As we were headed down the backside, I realized I didn't have my hat on. I then retraced my steps up the mountain looking for it (a huge waste of energy) but could not find it. I gave up on having a baseball cap for the rest of the trip, however, I was pleasantly surprised to find the cap tucked in my backpack later on. I joked with Shawn that I'm losing my mind with how forgetful I have been lately... he didn't believe me but I think by the end of the trip he started to agree with my assessment. 

We stopped along a plateau that had high bushes and small trees. This allowed us to get out of the sun, and rest in the shade while we studied the rams for the rest of the day. The biting bugs were out in force so we had to layer up to keep them off us. We napped on and off for hours as we sat observing these two rams while concurrently dreaming of them being accessible the next day. This worked out pretty good because it was so miserably hot that hiking in these desert conditions would have been horrible. We continued to glass the entire valley with little movement spotted. At one point, we did see sheep at the very top of the drainage about 5 miles away. Unfortunately, the sheep weren't rams. There were 21 ewes and lambs grazing on low grass. However, their presence in this location gave us hope that rams would also be in that area, but in more steep/ rocky terrain further in. We did notice one solo ram in a different location a couple ranges further and about 10 miles away, but we had no desire to hike that far out of our way to confirm legality.

Once the sun started its setting descent, it started to cool off a little bit. That is when we decided to move again. We made our way to the valley floor to setup camp beneath the rams while keeping a close eye on them. 

As darkness was approaching, we finally concluded that these rams could not be patterned. They were moving unpredictably and typical feeding times for sheep were not observed with these rams. They ended up moving into a new area for the night that was without a question unapproachable or retrievable. We put them to bed hoping they would move into some better terrain by morning. The plan would be to wake up and evaluate their location, hopefully allowing us to hunt them. Due to their location, it was likely that Shawn would go up after them by himself, and I would stay in the valley floor flagging directions to him during the approach.

Again, we were sung to sleep by thousands of mosquitos and flies buzzing around our tent. The 4AM alarm was set for opening day. Dreams filled our heads of harvesting a ram the next day.

Due to watching the pair of rams most of the day, we only hiked 3 miles, bringing the total to 14 miles. An additional 25 sheep to the 98 already seen brought our sheep total to 123 sheep.

Day 4 (Opening Day)

4AM came quick, but we were up and out of our tent in a hurry. To our disappointment and disbelief, the pair of rams moved to even worse terrain. We took our time tearing down camp as we watched them contently lounge in their unattainable location. After watching them for a few hours, we were getting anxious to hunt. It was proving very difficult to sit under an unpredictable monster ram on opening day without any hint of him ever coming down or presenting a stalking opportunity.

As a result, we decided to leave the pair. Our hunting time was limited and our bodies were begging us for a more active approach at sheep hunting. We moved on to Plan D, heading up the valley drainage. The good thing about moving further up the head of the valley is that the pair of rams would be viewable most of the time and we could keep track if they ended up dropping lower on the mountain. The only issue would be backtracking and covering the 5+ miles to get back to them in time.

On our way up the valley, we came across numerous caribou and moose sheds. This valley was obviously used as a wintering area for both caribou and moose.  There was one watering hole where we found 3 different moose sheds within 20 feet of each other! Also during this stretch we saw a couple fox, fresh bear prints, and 16 lambs/ ewes (already counted in the 21 from the day prior).

We finally arrived at the head of the valley. It was AMAZING sheep terrain with grass and escape routes everywhere. I was surprised with how much vegetation was actually available seeing that we were at approximately 6000 feet of elevation. There were sheep prints and scat absolutely everywhere, but the one thing that was missing mattered the most… rams.

We decided to make our way to a central location by a large rock and sit for a while. It appeared to be a highway in this upper valley, and hopefully rams would be traveling through at some point. As we sat there and watched the mountains, something black caught my attention. Upon further investigation, it was a wolverine running back and forth. This was pretty exciting for me, because this was the first wolverine I have seen in the wild since moving here 8 years prior. I tried to get a good picture of it, but it was too far away and moving too fast.

After sitting by this rock for about 4 hours and not seeing anything new, we were again getting antsy to more actively hunt. A quick glance back down the valley and the previous rams were confirmed to still be unobtainable. At this point, a slight disappointment was setting in. We had our hopes on sitting under a legal ram by opening day, and making a stalk on it. Here we were, sitting on a rock during the hunting season with our main plans all falling through, and no feasible, harvestable ram in sight. We had a decision to make, 1). either head back down the valley and sit under the legal ram, waiting until it finally decided to possibly come down and get into a shootable position, 2) continue to sit in this apparently desolate upper drainage, or 3) make our way up and over this valley toward where we started the loop and go check out the far mountain range. Really the only two options were options 1 and 3. I told Shawn it was up to him since he would get the first shot and this was his area he has hunted before. We were more or less at a loss on what to do since our main potential plans fizzled out and there were far fewer rams around compared to Shawn’s hunt the previous year.

After talking about the options for quite a while and not being able to decide, we left it to chance. I bent over and grabbed a rock. Behind my back I put the rock in one hand, and closed them both. I held out my closed hands to Shawn and told him to pick a hand. If he picked the hand with the rock in it, we would traverse up and over the mountains and head toward the far mountain range, a separate set of mountains; if he picked the hand without a rock in it, we would go back and sit under the pair of two rams until they came down, we ran out of hunting time, or they disappeared.

Shawn picked left, and I immediately opened my left hand with the rock in it.

Well that settled it. We would continue the hike up to the valley, proceed by the glacier, and traverse over the range back toward our ATVs and the far mountain range. Plan E would be to try and find something just over the pass by walking the ridges and if there was nothing there, Plan F would be determined later, but somewhere on that distant mountain range.

The rocky hike to the pass was easier than expected (although extremely hot). We came around one corner and Shawn said he saw a sheep butt scurry up and over a peak above us. However, it ran directly at the sun, so we were unable to get a good look or even know where it ran to. I never saw the sheep, and I think the hot weather was tossing mirages at Shawn, so we counted it as half a sheep sighting (this will be the .5 in our grand total count).

Before long, we were at 7,000 feet and ready to pass over the ridge into a valley on the other side of the range. At the top, we found the oddest thing. There was a large pit like area in the rocks where mud and snow melt looked to congregate. Within this mud and the rocks around it was about 10-15 different caribou antler sheds. Upon looking closer, there were many sheds buried underneath of the mud that were just barely poking out. None of the sheds were from large bulls either. Although there were only a few bones, we called this place the bou graveyard. These caribou really are crazy animals… at 7,000 feet, this was one of the last things I expected to see.

Being at the crossover spot of a hike is an exciting time. Imagine climbing forever eagerly anticipating looking into the valley on the other side. You have no idea what is over there or what it looks like, but you are full of hope it contains the legal ram you are looking for (or even a safe way of descending).

We did the standard one step, look everywhere, make sure everything is clear before taking another step and repeating, procedure. To our surprise, there was nothing in the valley on the other side. The valley below us didn’t really face the direction we needed it to in order to glass our destination mountains and surrounding area well enough. We needed to make our way to the neighboring bowl to get a better view, and to hopefully see sheep close by.

We side hilled across steep scree for quite a distance before we reached the outer ridge of the neighboring bowl. The side hill wasn’t too bad, just slow moving. As we approached the ridge, we slowly peaked over into the other bowl. Again, empty. Finding something on this side of the range (Plan E) didn’t pan out. That’s alright, we now had a great view of a huge hunting area.

We sat on this ridge for a couple hours, gathering intel, and figuring out what our next plan would be. We saw many groups of sheep, a handful of different hunters, random caribou sheds, a lost caribou, and a group of 4 rams on the far mountain range that looked very promising. They were in the same vicinity as the rams we passed on the first day of riding in, so it was likely this may be the same group. We made pursuing them our Plan F. We also noticed a band of sheep that appeared to be rams even further southwest than the group of 4 rams, but still on that far range. We decided that if the group of 4 rams didn’t work out, we would make that furthest group our Plan G.

While we were deciding on the best path back to the ATVs, a group of 21 lambs and ewes came over the hill and walked directly behind us. They weren’t scared of us yet so we decided it was time to pack up and head down the mountain.

We eventually made our way down the mountain and back to the ATVs. To our surprise, there was about 7 other ATVs parked in the same general area (way too many for hunting sheep in solitude). We quickly got our ATVs ready and rode off toward the base of the mountain we saw the 4 rams at. Luckily, the ATV trail went right in front of the mountain base. We stopped and put the spotting scope on the group. It was easy to determine that one of the 4 rams was a legal ram, with 2 of the others being close and needing further examination.  

It was late evening at this time and we decided to set up camp below the rams, watch them for the rest of the night, and get up early for the long hike up to them. We had a good idea of where they could go and every possible place had good options for an approach and stalk. We were planning on going light. We would leave the tent set up, and all unnecessary items at the tent.

This camping spot had the worst bugs out of all camping spots. The bugs were so bad that I gave up watching the rams and climbed into the tent early to save my skin from getting too eaten up. There was still a little sunlight left, but I couldn’t take any more slapping and itching, especially on sun burnt skin that was really starting to hurt. The plan for tomorrow was to wake up early, locate the sheep as soon as possible, then hike up 3000 feet and setup directly above the rams for a shot. We were again sung to sleep by the sound of thousands of mosquitos and flies thinking they could somehow get past the mesh in the tent.

We added 13 miles to our hiking total for cumulative hiking miles totaling 27 miles. As for sheep, we spotted 56.5 new sheep, bringing the sheep grand total to 179.5.

Day 5

I was up at 4, had my breakfast downed, packed my bag for a light hike, and I was ready to go before 4:15. As I was waiting for Shawn to get ready, I took spotting duty. There was just enough daylight to see the white of the 4 rams on the mountain. Luckily, they did not move over night. We discussed the best approach and decided to commit to one of the drainages once we got closer. Shawn gathered his gear for the day, put our food in the tree, and get ready to hit the mountain.

The drainage we wanted to go up was about a half a mile away from our tent along the ATV trail. Instead of riding, we hiked the ATV trail until we got to the base of where we wanted to hike up. At this point, the rams were no longer in our sight, and if all things worked out correctly, we wouldn’t see them until we got to the top and peaked into their drainage.

The start of the hike up consisted of many alders and weaving in and out of spruce trees. The bugs were still out relatively thick and it wasn’t uncommon to inhale a few white sox on the ascent. It was noticeably cooler on this day and the added bonus about the climb was this was the first day there were actually clouds in the sky. However, this was also the first day there was no breeze high on the mountain.

We eventually got out of the brush and into the grassy hillside. We then committed to the approach of going completely around, and up and over at the rams. I was excited about this approach since it was more forgiving for inadvertent noise, kept us further out of sight, gave us more time for accurately judging the rams, gave us a good hiding place from the rams, and kept our scent away from them better.

The grass hillside soon turned to rock. We shifted our strategy to zig zagging up the hill. As we got closer to the top, the terrain was getting more dangerous and exposed. There was one spot we had to ascend that made me nervous. It was completely exposed to the rams if they decided to move from their drainage and come closer our direction one drainage. We would be in view upon them coming up and over the ridge. Knowing this, I looked back at Shawn and told him to watch for the rams because we were vulnerable there. It wasn’t 1 minute later that Shawn got my attention and told me to get down. I could not believe that the rams decided to do EXACTLY what I was afraid they would do when we were in that exact spot. Out of all the times the rams could have merged over one drainage closer, and they chose to do it during those exact 10 minutes we needed to scurry up this exposed area! Shawn and I discussed beforehand that if a ram ever spots you, and you stop and drop immediately, chances are they will be a little nervous about you, but they will not spook and run away. This is exactly what happened.

The two rams that appeared on the ridge obviously saw us. They were about 320 yards away from us, however, they stared at us for a good 10 minutes, and then slowly walked the ridge upward, and disappeared back into the drainage they came from. This was the best-case scenario for us. Often times when rams do get spooked out of an area and they go up and over a ridge or mountain, they settle down and forget about you when they are on the other side.

Those 10 minutes we were laying on the mountain seemed like hours! We were each in a weird position since we were forced to drop mid stride. To make matters worse, the mosquitos and flies were all over us and we were unable to swat them away. We were served on a silver platter to all the blood sucking insects… and boy did they take advantage of the situation.

After the rams disappeared, we hurried up the exposed area and collected ourselves in a hidden area. Initially, we decided to wait 30 minutes for the rams to settle back down in case they were a little spooked. However, after thinking about that, we didn’t want the rams to settle down and feel comfortable enough to come back over in the drainage toward us until we got to the top. As a result, we decided to head for the top immediately.

We were hiking for about 20 minutes and the top was near. We were easily above the rams now and we slowly edged our way over toward their drainage. As we started our approach to the ridge to look over into the drainage, we heard a loud BOOOM. I instantly knew what happened. My heart sank knowing another hunter just shot the ram we were headed after. I yelled at Shawn to grab his gun, and get ready for rams to come running toward him. He readied his rifle and moved toward the ridge. After a couple minutes, no rams appeared. This meant that the obviously legal ram was likely fatally shot and the others likely took off in the opposite direction from us. I told Shawn sorry, they just beat us to the ram. This is when I think it sunk in that a hunter shot the ram we were pursuing. I left him to grab his bag and I peeked over the ridge. There was the large ram, curled over in the middle of the drainage, and two hunters on top of the mountain talking and congratulating each other.

I was dreading talking to Shawn after this, but he eventually made his way up to me and saw the ram and hunters. This was a deflating blow. Shawn verbalized my sentiment by stating that this took the fun out of hunting sheep here and it strains the desire to continue. I understood where he was coming from, but I had to stay optimistic. I basically said that these things happen, and we still have other sheep (Plan G) to check out.

We hiked a short way to the top of the ridge, found a good place to sit down, ate some lunch and watched a group of 13 ewes and lambs. We glassed around other areas and saw more sheep in almost every drainage. We didn’t count them because we were afraid of double counting from a prior count of this area. We basically sat in silence for a while. This allowed some of the steam to wear off and the proverbial Snickers to be eaten (have you seen those commercials where someone is hungry and not acting like themselves, until they take care of the hunger by eating a Snickers?).

Once we gathered ourselves, we discussed our next move, Plan G. As we were walking toward the target drainage, we saw handfuls of sheep, and a couple tents. There was more hunting pressure on this range our peaks than we realized, especially without any real water source to depend on. Hiking on top of everything was very easy. It was basically a plateau with drainages shooting off in every direction. We quickly got to our desired drainage, but unfortunately, it did not contain any rams.

Again, we sat down to ponder what to do next. The absence of rams in this drainage marked the end of our hunting possibilities on these mountains, especially with the handful of other hunters here. With Plan G being a bust, and our second major area not panning out, we were searching for what to do next. From our vantage point, we could see most of the south facing slopes for many miles. We noticed a drainage about 10 miles away that had an absolute highway of sheep trails in it. Along this highway, we could see a group of two sheep in some steep terrain, a group of 14 sheep on a nice grassy hill, and another pair of sheep in some very rough terrain. It was safe to assume that both pairs were likely rams, and the group of 14 were lambs and ewes. They were unfortunately too far away to really know, so I recommended that we head that direction and make that our Plan H. 

With our new plan in mind, we headed back to camp. We picked up a souvenir on the way back as someone dropped a buck knife on top of the mountain. It was now 3 hours after the ram was shot in front of us, and the hunters were still cleaning their kill.

The descent was quick and we were in the creek bed before we knew it. While hiking along the ATV trail, a couple grouse poked their heads out. We used this opportunity to get some aggression out and attempt to kill some fresh dinner with rocks. Unfortunately, neither of us were throwing well and after about 20 throws each, the grouse finally decided to fly off.

We eventually made it back to camp. We rested our feet, took a short nap, munched on some food, packed up our camp, loaded the wheelers, and headed back along the trail closer to where we needed to start hiking.

We got to the creek that came out of the valley we saw the sheep in and parked the wheelers. There were two other wheelers at that creek and we also noticed hoof prints from horse hunters. Shawn asked me what time it was, and I told him it was 2PM. He didn’t believe me. He could have sworn it was closer to 6PM, but because we did so much already that day, it seemed like it was a lot later.

We prepped the wheelers for being parked and got ready to hike up the creek. It was horrible timing to hike because those clouds form earlier had cleared, and the unwanted, blistering sun returned like a stalking ex-girlfriend. To make matters worse, I was having some pretty bad stomach issues and the last thing I wanted to do was hike in the intense heat while trying to keep myself from soiling my pants! Regardless, I sucked it up and we proceeded in.

We were soon within viewing distance where we could tell if the first pair of rams were legal or not. Both rams were sub legal, however, one of the rams was very close, and another one of those marginal rams that could get people in trouble. Unfortunately, the other pair of sheep was no longer around to put eyes on. While we were sitting and admiring the marginal ram, we also noticed a sheep high in the mountain, toward the back of the creek drainage. Upon further examination, we determined it was also a ram. Shortly after, the ram had 4 ram friends! This was our new Plan I.

We headed toward them with the intent to camp somewhere close enough to determine legality. Unfortunately, the skies opened up and sent us for cover. We ended up setting up our tent prior to getting underneath the rams. We crawled in and called it a night, anxious to get after them the next day.  

We logged 12.5 miles in our boots that day resulting in a total hiking distance of 39.5 miles so far for the trip. As for sheep, we counted 23 new sheep, bringing the sheep grand total to 202.5.

Day 6

It dumped rain and blew fairly hard all-night long. The alarm was set for 4AM, however, we were fogged in. I kept checking every half hour and at 6AM, it was starting to clear up.

We tore down a wet camp and got ready for the day. The two rams from yesterday were still close by and we watched them for a little while… still unable to make the marginal one legal.

We gazed toward the back of the creek drainage at our Plan I rams and only saw one ram on the grassy noll now. His 4 buddies were no longer there. We only had a few miles to go until we were within a good distance to tell if the ram was legal or not… he was not, and thus, Plan I was a bust. We quickly formulated a Plan J, which was to follow the valley in, traverse up and over the easy pass into the adjacent valley, and hopefully find something there to pursue.

We continued on our way toward the pass and saw another solo ram on a south facing slope closer to the pass. This guy was also far from being legal, but it was reassuring to see so many rams in this valley. As we proceeded toward the pass, our attention was drawn to an outline of something on the ridge above the solo ram we had pegged with Plan I. It was a hunter. He had no backpack, no trekking sticks, and no hunting buddy… just his rifle that he was carrying over his shoulder. He was walking the ridge away from us, toward the solo ram, completely away from any feasible camping site. We were trying to figure out what he was doing when we realized, there were 4 rams sitting on an outcrop, a couple shoots beyond the solo ram’s noll. Less than 15 seconds after we noticed these rams, they stood up, and sprinted off in the other direction. To our surprise, behind them was 8 other rams following their lead, meaning a band of 12 rams was hiding where we couldn’t see them! Unfortunately for the hunter walking the ridge, he was very obvious and careless with his sky lined approach, and he ended up ruining a perfectly good opportunity to shoot a real nice ram. The rams ran into some very steep, rocky terrain where they could see everything from all directions.

As soon as the rams spooked, the hunter turned around and walked the ridge back toward our direction. We watched the hunter execute his walk of shame back empty handed, as he paralleled our path toward the overpass. We kept a close eye on the rams as we had a perfect view down the ridge line to determine where they end up (the hunter on the ridge could not tell where they went).

As we observed the hunter hike back toward us, we couldn’t figure out where he was possibly camped at. He finally got to the overpass before us, and there were two hunters, 2 horses, and a donkey waiting for him. We were actually surprised to see the horse hunters this shallow into the mountains as horses allow for deep trekking and separation from access points. The interesting part about us being in the valley and the horse hunters being above us in the pass is that I don’t think they knew we were there. This was fairly obvious when the hunter decided to go on the other side of the hill from his buddies, and proceeded to poop with his bum in our direction. Now that’s a first!

The horse hunters soon disappeared over the pass and we carried on hiking toward it. We knew there likely would be very little on the other side of the overpass now that we realized the horse hunters were currently in the area and likely knew of everything it contained. As we proceeded, we continued to keep an eye on the spooked rams.

The overpass was a neat area. It opened up to a couple different valleys below it. Although we didn’t explore much beyond it, it was obvious that there were many options and directions to go in pursuit of a future ram. We decided to plant ourselves on a small ledge just inside the overpass that gave us a great 360-degree vantage point for viewing the mountains in every direction. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any sheep. We didn’t even see any sign of the horse hunters. It looked like Plan J was not going to work either.

We sat on the ledge for many hours, hoping to see something travel into the area. Nothing moved. Perhaps the intense sun and heat contributed to the lack of movement during this day and throughout the hunt. All the while we were napping and glassing, we kept our eyes on the spooked rams. We talked about their current and potential behavior. Spooked and scattered rams typically take a day or longer to recover to their normal behavior. These rams were out on a high ridge with the capability to see everything around them. They could continue their escape into higher and safer country, or they could return to the grassy ledges they came from. We already watched two of the more scared rams scurry up and around the far mountain the ridge connects to, so we were worried the rest of the group would likely do the same at some point. However, there was still a small chance the rams could return to where they were grazing. They were currently spread out and a handful of them were foraging in the rocks on the slope below them.

We debated sitting on this lookout ledge until the rams decided what they were going to do. We also debated pursuing them. My main concern at this point was the lack of time we had left in the hunt. We didn’t have time to start completely over, and we were not deep into a hunt area where he had other options to really pursue. All things considered, we decided that we weren’t going to just sit and watch this band of rams. We were going to make a move on them, labeling this Plan K. We didn’t want to regret just watching them walk away and wonder “what if”. We also decided that this was our last hoorah. If this pursuit didn’t work, we would likely throw in the towel and head toward home.

The rams were a long way away, and once we got to the base of the mountain faces they were on, we would have to climb loose rock and scree littered faces to get to the top of the ridge. Combine this with a sun directly overhead and another day of intense heat, and we had a difficult approach ahead of us.

The hike to the base of the mountain face went really fast actually. I think knowing it was an all or nothing scenario now drove us harder than before. On our way over, we saw many caribou racks, groups of ptarmigans, and a handful of very content grouse. Before we started our climb, we dropped weight. We knew we would be returning to this creek drainage regardless of the outcome and we had to get up the mountain as quickly as possible. We left the tent, most of the food, most of our clothes, and anything we didn’t need to stalk at the base of the mountain face.

Shawn started up the mountain with me trailing behind. It was slow and steady. The sun was out in full force again, but we eventually made our way up. We got toward the top of the ridge and were close to a point where we could look over at the rams. We quickly changed and put on our cover camo. I sat down and told Shawn that I would stay put until he got a glimpse of the rams and called me over. He loaded his gun and slowly crept to look over the ridge. I was sitting there trying to interpret Shawn’s actions and determine what he was looking at. It was soon obvious to me that he did not see the rams. I got up at this point and joined him. Unfortunately, it was confirmed, the rams had moved on.

We couldn’t see the rams anywhere, and then I caught a glimpse of them about a mile away, low on the mountain, rounding an outcrop headed toward a deep valley with a glacier. It was obvious to us that they were now on a mission to retreat as far back as they could get from their original spook area. We couldn’t pursue them because we weren’t sure where they were headed, we didn’t have our full packs with us, a storm was nearby, and we had less than 2 days left to hunt. We had only a few minutes to watch them disappear around the mountain. We are confident they had no idea we were pursuing them; it was just bad timing for them to decide to continue their escape while we were in pursuit.

We took a few pictures while at the top of this ridge where the rams were. I took some distance measurements, and even if the rams were still there, the closest we could have got to the rams without them seeing us, and assuming they didn’t walk back toward the grass they came from, was 390 yards. This was outside of our comfortable shooting range anyway. Upon further investigation of the area the rams were laying, we found a couple interesting items. First, a surveyor landmark steak was driven in the ground up here, secondly, there were 3, 4-foot metal poles, two inches in diameter, connected at the top of them by wire. These were just lying on the ground and the wire was also tied to the landmark steak to prevent the poles from either blowing or sliding away. Next to the poles was a bullet shell case. Although it was odd to find these things, we decided it must have been used as a meat hanging tripod for some reason or another. Either way, it was an interesting find and not something I would want to carry that far up the mountain.

We couldn’t enjoy the view for too long as a strong storm looked like it was blowing in. Perhaps that was the reason the sheep decided to move on, since this area was so exposed to the elements up there. We quickly changed out of our cover up camo and got ready for a quick descent. Our goal was to get down off the mountain as fast as we could. The loose scree in the bowls made this very easy and my GPS showed that we made our way down the mountain at speeds faster than 7 mph.

We got to our stuff just as the rain was hitting. We geared up and got ready for a downpour. Lucky for us, the clouds parted and it only rained for a little while. Everything around us looked horrible and stormy, however, the valley we were in did not get much of the bad weather.

On our way hiking down the creek bottom, we were content with that being our last focused effort on a ram stalk. We both understood that we were headed toward home now. The last stalk was a well-executed plan, it just didn’t work out as desired. We were now on our last plan, Plan L. We would slowly hike back toward the ATVs, camp in a similar area as the night before, watch the mountains for anything new moving around, and if nothing showed itself, make our way to the ATVs the next morning, and return to the truck.

We tried finding the grouse and ptarmigan again during the creek hike. We now had time to cook them over a fire and really wanted to add some protein to our dinner. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the birds when we wanted to. One small detour on our way down the valley involved picking up a large caribou shed we found earlier on our way toward the rams. It was in fairly good shape, and I decided it would be my consolation prize for the hunt. The racks were too much weight to add to our packs early in the hunt, but now that the hunt was essentially over, I could afford the extra weight. So I strapped it to my pack, and continued the hike with it on my back.

We made it to the general area we were going to setup our tent and we spotted the original two rams we came to see in this valley. They were not afraid of us at all. We pitched the tent directly below them and ate our dinner while watching them graze above us. The marginal ram was still very tempting. He was seriously less than an inch from being a full curl legal ram. We told each other that this ram will likely get shot this season, but it won’t be by one of us… although there were a few times we contemplated “getting closer.”

As we were getting ready to head in to the tent for the night, I noticed something white on the ground about 50 yards behind our tent. After closer investigation, I saw that it was sheep skin that was discarded after someone removed it from a skull. First of all, I’m not sure why someone would waste a sheep hide and just leave it in the field, but secondly, that means someone shot a ram somewhere close by before we got here. (And that was basically the story of our hunt… just a little too late).

We had a large feast that night knowing we would have a less than 2 days’ worth of extra food. We turned in early since we were both mentally and physically exhausted, had very full bellies, and the trickle of the creek behind us urged us to sleep.

We hiked an additional 12 miles that day bringing our total hiking distance to 51.5 miles for the hunt. We didn’t see many new sheep. Adding 8 more lambs and ewes and 10 more rams brought our new total to 220.5 sheep.

Day 7

The weather was poor again overnight. It rained fairly hard and we woke up with damp to wet sleeping bags. We slept in without an alarm due to the potential for being socked in, as well as the general feeling of the hunting pretty much being over. Upon exiting the tent, we found our two ram buddies in similar places, with no new sheep in site. The process of tearing down camp was slow moving. We had no real hunting goal and we still had a sliver of hope that some rams would wonder within sight.

After our bags were finally packed, we continued to hike out of the creek drainage and toward our ATVs. It was another sunny day, but it was obviously colder. (We would later find out that it snowed that night in the mountains) We saw many groups of ptarmigan on our short hike, easily topping 100+. We had a couple chances at rock hunting a few and still could not connect.

After arriving back at the ATVs, we decided to check out another area to see what kind of ATV access it had. It was extremely rough riding, but had some promising hiking potential. The bonus to taking this little side trip was that we stumbled across a large moose rack, which became Shawn’s consolation prize.

We eventually got back to the truck in one piece. The parking lot was a zoo with vehicles and trailers. I am always nervous leaving my truck parked while hunting, but luckily, it was not tampered with at all.

I checked the cooler in the truck and to our surprise, there was still plenty of ice left in it, even after the extremely hot days and the windows being up. I started up the truck and immediately noticed that it didn’t sound good. It sounded like either the fan was struggling to turn or the belt was grinding on something. Regardless, we couldn’t do much to diagnose or fix it, so we proceeded on toward home.

We were craving a greasy burger and beers. We were hoping that a local lodge would have what we were looking for so we stopped at one. They didn’t offer food here, so we decided to just sit at the bar and buy a beer from the owner. It was a great stop with great conversation and story sharing. The owner showed us a binder of pictures of harvested animals around the area and we were in awe.

We could have talked with the owner for hours on end, but we had to hurry on our way to make it home before it got too late. On our way out, we came across a couple more opportunities to rock hunt grouse. Again, we failed to harvest a bird with a rock. I’m not sure why my throwing was so poor this trip; generally I can take down about half of my attempted birds when hunting with rocks. This trip I batted a big fat .000.

We saw a couple law enforcement officers checking hunters along the road. We later found out there was some awnry bears in the area recently. Apparently, the night prior, a brown bear got into a hunter’s tent in a drainage near us. There were no details at the time about injuries, damage, or anything, but it’s still scary to think about that possibly happening to us during a hunt. 

The entire trip home, the truck started to sound worse and worse. The over worked belt/fan sound got louder and eventually turned into a clicking and hissing sound. We pulled off the highway into the third Eagle River exit, and when I stopped the truck at the off-ramp intersection, we heard a THUMP, and it shut off!

Thank goodness we made it this far before it broke down! Just a week prior to the hunt, I had it at the shop to be checked over. I brought the fan/belt sound to the mechanics attention and they said it sounded fine. Needless to say, I was not happy when this breakdown occurred, especially since I was proactive about trying to prevent it from happening.

I called Danielle and she came and picked up Shawn. He grabbed his truck and came back to tow us the rest of the way home. Once home, we unloaded everything and Shawn headed to Anchorage, officially concluding the hunting adventures.

We ended up hiking 5 additional miles on the last day bringing the grand total for our hunting trip to 56.5 miles. We didn’t see any new sheep, so our grand total for sheep stayed at 220.5 sheep. My truck would later get towed into the shop and diagnosed with a seizing alternator. The sound we heard was the belt working against the alternator that was locking up and slowly preventing the belt from moving.

Another sheep hunt is in the books. Even though the hunt was not successful, it was still a great time spent in the mountains. This hunting season my priority is set on harvesting a moose and possibly a caribou (still to come). I have alternating priority years; so I wasn’t too disappointed to not come home without a ram. Next year my priority will be to harvest a mountain animal, so my efforts and plans will definitely be intensified. 

 Shawn looking around during a stop on our ride in. 

The first four rams of our hunt. 

These are two sublegal rams that were very low on the mountain.

We spotted four rams all the way at the end of this creek drainage on the side of that further mountain peak. 

 Nature's shower! It was tempting with the intense heat, but we didn't have time for it.

 This is the start of the huge group of ewes and lambs that appeared on the pass over area.

 Under the orange is where these four rams were hanging out. 

They finally came down from the mountain for their evening feed. We were headed up and over the pass at this moment. 

A subgroup of sheep from that large surge that came over earlier. 

 One of hundreds of sheds we found. 

 Sitting at the top of a mountain, we found this mushroom that stem. I didn't know sheep ate mushrooms... maybe they had a nice trip :)

The mountain face that contained the monster ram. 

Zoomed in closer...

 And closer.

And this is through the spotting scope 5 miles away. 

A better look of the terrain from our mountain overlooking the whole drainage. 

The back of another valley. It's hard not to wonder what is hanging out at the back of these. 

Shawn doing what he does best... locating sheep.

The shoot behind the tent kept having active rock slides. Good thing there wasn't an earthquake overnight or we may have been buried. 

 Our sunset on night two. 

There were caribou and moose sheds everywhere in this drainage. 

 This is a close up of the solo small ram.

Hey there little fox!

Shawn volunteered to climb and take a peek at the sheep on the other side of the ridge.

Green EVERYWHERE. 

It looks like a rough winter claimed this bull's life. 

Pano from our central glassing rock  

TRUST ME... this is a wolverine in the center.

Heading up and over.

This is the mud hole I was referring to. There are about 10 sheds around this flat area. 

 Our view at the summit of our pass. 

We side-hilled along the mountain face to look for more sheep and get a better look at the mountains near by.

And more sheep ...

 Camping under rams in the BEST possible place if you like bugs.

The four rams we were going after the next day. 

Here is a zoomed out view of the rams. 

A couple of "broomed" ewes

This little ram will someday grow up and have hunters drooling over him. He's probably only 2 years old in this picture. 

Two pairs of rams spotted... our new destination.

They were too small :( 

 This was our first bad weather and poor visibility day. 

The rain didn't make the pair of rams grow.

This is the high ridge the band of 12 rams was hanging out on. 

If you know this guy, tell him I got a picture of him going poop on the side of the mountains. 

His horse hunting group. 

The furthest item you can see in this picture is the ridge that those rams were on.

Here is a closer look at the ridge. 

We found a dandy of a caribou shed on our way toward the large band of rams. 

After the long hike, Shawn finally peeks over the ridge toward the rams. 

No rams :( 

 This is a picture of the weird tripod poles at the top of the ridge. 

Before it started raining, we were at the top of that peak. 

Our dinner entertainment... sublegal rams to watch and study.